Friday, October 08, 2004

Counselor to the president

Karen Hughes turned up on MSNBC as Bush's heavy artillery, looking ebullient, no doubt ecstatic not to have witnessed a second meltdown of her candidate. In assessing the president's purported success in this evening's forum, the former counselor to the president (now counselor to the candidate) asserted: "He's a people person."

To her credit, MSNBC's Chris Jansing challenged this perception: "He looked angry, he looked mean," she said, "[and] he nearly charged Charlie Gibson at one point."

"He looked friendly," countered the grinning Ms. Hughes. "He had that twinkle in his eye."

Apparently what your blogstress saw as a twitch turned out to be a twinkle.

Naughty to be haughty

Watch word of the night: haughty. The Bush spinners--most recently, Karen Hughes--are all using it. They say that's how Kerry looked. And they're a bit right. He's a haughty guy. But your cybertrix is not so sure it matters. If your blogstress was John Kerry (a mind-bending scenario), she would ignore the charge and talk about issues.

She just turned up on Chris Matthews' show in the guise of a spinner, a role for which she's a bit too thoughtful. No dervish, she; rather, the senator from New York took a characteristically artful turn.

When asked how well Kerry did on the issues of stem-cell research and tort reform, Sen. Clinton noted the complexity of both of those issues, and stated her belief that the latter could be effected in such a way that protects both patients and health-care providers. The answers to such questions lay not in the extremes, she asserted, but more often "in the mushy middle." Hardly a spinner's yarn.

Her best line: "President Bush [admonishes] Senator Kerry for changing his positions to suit the facts, while the president changes the facts to suit his positions."

Shocked, shocked is your blogstress at the universal suggestion among pundits that President Bush did well in tonight's debate. Perhaps it's the law of diminished expectations at work.

Having spent the so-called town-hall meeting (enough with this euphemism, already) attuned to her inner human rather than her inner wonk, your cybertrix was certain that the senator came across as much more calm, confident and commanding than his plaintive opponent.

Righties will no doubt accuse her of bias, which would defy reason when one considers how much less than sanguine she has been about the senator's chances, and her lack of love for the mature Kerry. (Back when she was young and crunchy, she loved the young, shaggy Kerry.)

Out on her limb your Webwench will stay, betting on her gut, which tells her the president didn't come off well.

Now, there's an objective test. The president wouldn't appoint a justice who would prohibit the Pledge of Allegiance from being said in public places with the "under God" phrase.

If the Republican House has its way, the president won't have to worry about that, for decisions delivered by the federal courts will be dictated by the Congress. Check out this legislation, which would virtually undo the structure of the Constitution.

Well, he's obviously doing something to keep all those synapses firing at once. Your cybertrix is most impressed with the senator's referral, by name, back to an audience member (Nikki) who earlier asked a question about U.S. relations with other nations.

Here your cyberscribe must apologize for glossing over much of the substance of this discussion, so distracted is she by the glorious dynamic of the president so supremely p*ss*d off that he's either yelling at or pleading with the audience. (Well, he just got a tiny laugh with his rejoinder to Kerry, "I own a timber company? That's news to me. Need some wood?")

Bush is so clearly rattled by Kerry's relentless onslaught that he's looking less than presidential. But don't get too smug there, Senator. There are moments when you're looking like you're having too much fun batting the mouse around. (A little Botox could've gone a long way on both faces tonight.)

The president is speaking once again of all the OB-GYNs gone out of business because of the scurrilous work of trial lawyers such as the one, according to Mr. Bush, that Senator Kerry "put on the ticket."

Bush is clearly trying to master the reaction shots that did him in during his last outing against the Senator from Massachusetts, but his attempts at facial-muscle control is leaving him looking startled and verging on tics.

Bush tried pulling out the line Cheney used against Edwards, saying that Edwards and Kerry only took issue with the war in Iraq after Howard Dean, who stood against the war, began to pull ahead in the Democratic primaries. Kerry, however, took his cue from Cheney's debate strategy.

He didn't directly address the president's assertion; instead he went after Bush on the way in which he prosecuted the war. He went directly on attack about the Bush strategy. Kerry appears to be kicking ass.

A very nice midwestern lady just asked Kerry how she can defend him against the charge of some co-workers and family that he is wishy-washy. Kerry started out reasonably well with the "weapons of mass deception" line. (Bush didn't find WMD in Iraq so he's turned his campaign into a weapon of mass deception.) Excellent explanation of his position on the Patriot Act: supported it; just doesn't like the way Ashcroft "has applied it." (Your blogstress, for the record, finds fault with both the act and the application.)

But then he yammered on a string of facts that lost your cybertrix in their intricacies.

It's a perfect caress of an evening here in the nation's capital, with a breeze stirring just enough to make its presence known, the air neither too cool for short sleeves nor too warm for long. Behind the Capitol Dome, a sky recently vacated by the sun forms an indigo backdrop streaked with teal-tinted clouds.

In the day-to-day leading up to the Most Important Election in a Generation (or a Lifetime, or the Century, depending on whom is speaking), it's become all too easy to forget what a truly lovely place this can be. The denizens, including your blogstress, can hardly be blamed as they navigate checkpoints and endure surveillence and warnings of impending doom.

To the nation, Capitol Hill is the place where the laws, the kielbasi, whatever you want to call them, get made. But it is also a neighborhood lined with trees and quaint row houses that take on a twinkly glow as evening falls. Those who live far from Washington no doubt view the machinery of politics as something large and lumbering, left over from the manufacturing era--just retrofitted with cyberware. The apparati this election year, however, are found not in some giant sausage plant, but in the living rooms and kitchens of Capitol Hill.

Taking her evening constitutional last night, your cybertrix passed by the home of a senator, the windows of which revealed a gathering that could only have been a political fundraiser. People in blazers and khakis and very subdued suits stood facing a single point in the room, glasses of chablis in hand. The focal point was likely the host giving the requisite speech calling for a keeping of the faith and ponying up. Judging from her own mail, your blogstress can assure you that dozens such events take place every night here, and will until Election Day.

In other homes on the Hill, strategy is debated across dining room tables and whispered in bedrooms. Living rooms such as your Webwench's are transformed into oppo factories wherein mind-numbing facts submit to the propagandist's alchemy to become shocking claims.

Some toil for the preservation of the Constitution, others for global domination, most for movement forward in their own careers and all for the victory of their man. All in one charming little village.

White Dragon, a dear reader, writes with a most fascinating observation regarding an odd clash of interests in a single domain name:

[C]ouldn't help but notice Mr. Cheney's boo-boo during the VP debate. Cheney asked viewers to visit factcheck.com to find out the "real" facts about Edwards and Kerry.

If you visit factcheck.com, you'll find yourself at a Web site owned by George Soros [the financier who supports liberal causes around the world, often under the aegis of his Open Society Foundation]. The site has a large banner that reads:

"Why we must not re-elect President Bush: A personal message from George Soros"

Mr. Soros then explains his take on the Bush regime.

The good people at Soros HQ report heavier traffic on their Web site since the debate. More than triple. They [seem to be saying] that they don't own the domain

factcheck.com and that they are checking into the matter to see what happened... After all, people who support open society play fair.

Continuing a run of being under the weather, your blogstress has taken to flying under the radar, hence the lack of posts since the veep debate. Most perplexing is your Webwench's inability to smoke cigarettes, which really puts a dent in her blogstress persona. Can your blogstress be The Blogstress without a cigarette in her hand? Even more pressing, how cool is it to be hanging about in spandex and leather with a lollipop stick poking out of one's mouth?

About Me

Adele M. Stan is a journalist and editor whose work has appeared in The New Republic, the Village Voice, The Nation, The Advocate, Salon.com, the Washington Blade and Mother Jones magazine, as well as on the op-ed pages of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Daily News. She began her media career at Ms. magazine, where she served both on staff and as a contributing editor.
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